Sheinah's First Kiss

This is the first of what are sure to be several postings from our crazy Christmas travels. This is totally out of order but so amazingly cute that we had to post it right away. Our last stop on the four state tour was for a mini college reunion with the folks from Lee University in Tennessee. Steve and Dee Sena have a 20-month old son named Strader. He and Sheinah were saying their good-byes on our last night there and decided to exchange a kiss. Strader liked it so much that they just kept hugging and kissing. We finally decided we should break them up because we felt like our 2-year-old kids were making out...

Enjoy the video...

Snow days

We've gotten over a foot of snow in the past two weeks. It's been fun for all of us to play in the snow on our new property. We went sledding in the backyard when we got about 2 or 3 inches. Then, the next weekend, we got a whole foot of snow. Travis cleared out a little space in the backyard so that Samson could go "shishe" (as Travis calls it). It turned into a platform of snow that both Sheinah and Samson were light enough to walk on. Check out the pictures and video.

Sheinah and Samson check out the snow-ledge (yes, that entire area is our backyard).

Sheinah tries to pull Samson in the sled

Where oh where is my hairbrush?

So this may be considered by some to be not-so-appropriate for the blog environment. We, however, found it so incredibly funny that we just couldn't wait until our annual DVD production to share this with our friends. Sheinah has developed a fondness for brushing our hair. On this day, she decided to brush all of her daddy's hair. Enjoy!

We've actually been trying to upload this video for three weeks, but it was too large. We bought a super-cool video software program at a Black Friday sale and now we can upload an edited version. Our annual Bumgardner family moving is going to ROCK this year!

Sheinah's new hairstyle

Melissa has the honor of doing Sheinah's hair every morning. She's been wearing "pigtails" for awhile now, but we didn't realize how much she liked it until yesterday morning. When Melissa tried to put just one pony tail in her hair and tuck it under (like Lori taught her), Sheinah got all upset and kept asking for "nother one" so Melissa obliged. Then, Sheinah said she wanted one in the back so she could have "free" (as in three) pony tails. Again, despite how interesting it looked, Melissa obliged. Today, Melissa was able to talk her into just two pony tails: one on top and one in the back.

The "Fall Inn"

We got a nice little snow storm today. It wasn't all that big of a deal, except for the roads got really slick...and we have evidence to prove it! While driving home from work early to get a jump start on cooking Thanksgiving Dinner, Melissa got to experience the ice first hand. She was driving slow because the roads were bad and made almost home without any events....until she tried to turn on our street. She hit a patch of ice and realized she wasn't going to be able to stop. The decision was to either go straight or sideways into the ditch :) By the grace of God and some seriously good driving, she put it nicely in the ditch right between a pole and a sign. She was unharmed and so was the van!

Check out the pictures:
















And here's a video (using the new blogger video uploader):

New styles for the Bums

Travis bought a new shaving kit (complete with a nose trimmer that he is way too fond of). The first night he had it, he just couldn't wait to us it to trim his goatee. Apparently, this is a much harder task than anyone anticipated. He thought it would be a good idea to do this in the shower to make clean-up easier. However, he didn't want to get in the shower so he figured he would just lean in over the edge so he could use the built-in mirror in the shower head. Not 1 minute later, Melissa hear's the infamous "oh no" that accompanies all of Travis' adventures. He had managed to take a nice sized chunk out of the corner of his mustache (near his nose). The next step was to trim the other side to match, resulting in a lovely "vato" look. Then he decided to just shave the mustache completely to see if he could get away with the chin-only goatee...he could not :) The final step was complete removal of all the facial hair...a look Melissa hadn't seen in five years and Sheinah had never seen. Somehow, we forgot to get a picture of that final step.

Not to be outdone by Travis' new hair-free look, Melissa decided to freshen her look with a trendy new haircut. Yes, the front is SUPPOSED to be longer than the back. It's taken a little bit of getting used to, but it is definitely easier to take care of.

Finally, when we were taking pictures of Melissa's new 'do, Sheinah wanted a little piece of the action as well. Pigtails are a new look for her also, mostly because she just recently learned to sit still long enough for Melissa to put them in. Check out how long her hair is getting!

First snow storm

Well, we made it all the way to November before we had our first real snow storm. This was the first year that Sheinah could really talk and understand what she was seeing. When she saw that it was snowing outside, all she wanted was to go out an play in it. She kept saying "snow coming down" and looking up to the sky to see where it came from. The land we live on is simply beautiful in the snow. Of course, we forgot to get pictures of the land before the snow started melting). However, we did grab a shot of Sheinah in her snow gear before she went outside to throw snow balls at the dog.